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Thursday, August 07, 2014

We've got a new number on just how extensive America's voter fraud problem really is. Hold on to your hats, folks, because that number is: 31.

I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud for years now, including the fraud ID laws are designed to stop. In 2008, when the Supreme Court weighed in on voter ID, I looked at every single allegation put before the Court. And since then, I’ve been following reports wherever they crop up.

To be clear, I’m not just talking about prosecutions. I track any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix.

So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country.

That's not 31 proven incidents in the last 14 years, that's 31 possible incidents—some or most of them could be the result of clerical errors, like people signing the poll books on the wrong lines. That's what the conservative obsession with voter ID laws seeks to tamp down on. Having politicians pay people to vote, or having "charity" organizations be front organizations for political operations, or having candidates funded wholesale by corporate lobbies, all of that pales in comparison to making sure those 31 people (maybe) get what's coming to them.

That, or it's a transparent attempt to make voting more difficult for minorities and the poor, backed by the same people who have a long history of trying to make voting more difficult for minorities and the poor. Six of one, half dozen of the other.